BC Seed Gathering Friday Nov. 3rd & Saturday Nov. 4th 2017 Join us for the 2 day seed gathering this November to connect, network, learn, engage and take a step forward in building a local resilient seed system. The BC Seed Gathering is the place for folks working across the seed spectrum

On Wednesday July 26th Chris and Carla made a day trip to Saanich from Vancouver to host a Field Day for the Beet Harvest Evaluation at Square Root Farm! We had a good turn out of 10 people at the event. Below is a picture of our field day set

It was a real treat to check in on the carrots today, kind of. There so many flies in the enclosure it was overwhelming. So, of course, I took a video! Today also gave me the chance to tie up the carrots as they are getting more and more top

To plan for having an adequate number of fly pollinators at all times during the carrot flowering period you can map out the lifecycle of the fly to create a schedule and breeding plan. This could look something like the following based on a typical fly lifecycle: Fly Breeding Schedule.

Today we were happy to host Laurie McKenzie of the Organic Seed Alliance for our Kale Breeding Workshop in Duncan on Vancouver Island. We had a group of 18 eager and budding plant breeders ready to absorb all Laurie had to offer. This workshop was focused on kale as it

This year, one of my goals in the carrot seed project is to breed our own flies to avoid ordering in pupae. There are a few reasons for this: The current source of blue bottle fly pupae we have is from a US source. There are no local or Canadian

I (Chris Thoreau) am lucky enough to be in Italy at the moment, with a group of folks from Vancity Credit Union, to learn about the role of cooperatives in the Italian economy. We are primarily in the Emilia-Romagna region where Co-ops make up over 1/4 of the region’s economy

My mentor is Sal Dominelli of Sweet Rock Farm on Gabriola Island (@sweetrockfarm on Instagram & sweetrockfarmseeds.com). Sal has been growing seed on Gabriola for fifteen years and selling commercially for the last six. Sweet Rock Farm is a 5-acre farm on Gabriola that has a good supply of water to source from during our

We saw a particularly cold winter here in Vancouver and it killed most of the lacinato varieties of kale. The curly kale was quite damaged as well, but is making a fierce come back! The leaves still taste great too. In the second year of curly kale growth we will be

The leek seedlings are looking great! They were seeded in the beginning of March and are ready to be transplanted into the field on Tuesday May 16th! We have 31 varieties of leeks being transplanted, unfortunately one variety had zero germination, but it happens and its a good thing we

Tuesday May 9th was a beautiful day in Vancouver to breath some fresh farm air and seed 3 replicates of 8 golden beet varieties! We carefully measured out the plots, placed the correct stakes in as per the map we created. We randomized the order of the varieties between plots and

At the farm sites where we trial the vegetable crop varieties, each plot must have a stake to indicate which variety is growing there. We use codes for ease of data collection and to avoid bias towards one variety or another. In the past we have used wooden stakes, which

One of the goals of the 2017 Carrot Seed Project is to breed out own flies instead of buying pupae. Here is a short video showing the creation of my fly generator! Here is the test run I made last year to get me started:

Last week we got our isolation tent setup and our carrot stecklings planted at UBC Farm. This is a multi-step process which we documented much of. This is the first year doing the carrot seed project at UBC Farm. The carrot stecklings we are planting are Nash’s Nantes – bred

Introducing the 22-week online Certification Course in Organic Vegetable Seed Production through the Canadian Organic Growers! This flexible online course is delivered with online readings and webinars while studying The Organic Seed Grower book by John Navazio and Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties by Carol Deppe. The experienced course instructors are Patrick

One of my favourite projects is our carrot seed project. This project involves growing carrots to seed in an isolation tent to prevent cross-pollination with a common weed – Queen Anne’s lace. I have blogged frequently about this project in the past. Carrots require insects for cross pollination and these

We are excited about our newest seed program, the Citizen Seed Trial, that launched this spring. We’ve shared a lot of the detail of the program already, but this is a chance to share with you what has made this project so cool for us on a personal and program

This weekend I (Chris) attended the Richmond Seedy Saturday with our BC Seed Trials display and to promote our new Citizen Seed Trial. Although a much smaller event than the Victoria Seedy Saturday I attended a few weeks ago, the Richmond attendees were very enthusiastic and we gave out all